The Anthem of the Indelible
by izukey
Summary: After striking a rash deal with God, Saezuru Kane is stripped of her memories and brought to a world of vast oceans and billowing sails, where freedom can only be attained through strength. But despite the lost memories and spilt blood, despite her callused hands and the constant fall of tears, she couldn't bring herself to regret a single moment. OC-centric. Eventual AcexOCxKidd.
1. Overture - Prelude I

**Age 3**

* * *

**Kaienreki 1505**

**July**

* * *

There was a deep, hollow ache under her lungs. Each rasping breath was proving more and more difficult to pull in. Her limbs felt as if they were trying to bury themselves into the dirt, such was their weight.

She felt tired. So, so, tired.

_Sick_, was her first realization.

No, such a description would only belie the magnitude of the sensation. It would be far more accurate to say that a blackness was manifesting within her body, an empty abyss of nothingness threatening to swallow her into herself. She wasn't sick, she was on the verge of death.

The girl managed to peel open her eyelids by increments and stare at the clear blue sky above her.

_Food._

* * *

_A part of her, detached from the rest, wondered at the infantile nature of her thoughts, because, wasn't she sixteen?_

_But her body rejected that thought with enigmatic certainty._

* * *

The girl slowly dragged herself into a sitting position, panting from the immense effort this took. She had the presence of mind to vaguely wonder if such an action should have been so difficult, but dismissed the thought as irrelevant.

Her eyes swiveled left and right, observing her environment to the best of her current ability.

_Hungry._

She was in a small clearing within a forest, as apparent from the multitude of brown trunks and fallen branches in her line of vision. Dark outlines of leaves decorated the ground, cast from somewhere far above her head. The weather was on the mild side, slightly warmer than was comfortable, but still manageable.

_Food._

She lifted herself on trembling muscles and stumbled several times before finally managing to stand on her bare feet. The girl shakily made her way to the treeline.

"Oof!"

She tripped over her own limbs and fell heavily against a fragile sapling. Slight though she was, the young tree nevertheless bent dangerously under her weight -

**Crack**

\- and snapped in half.

The girl threw her center of balance backwards and barely managed to avoid being pierced through by the bark that was left spiked up from the uneven distribution of force. Her heart thundered in her chest, but what caught her attention was something much more precious than near impalement. There was a perfectly round fruit only just clinging onto a fallen branch, its gargantuan size - a circumference larger than her own head - disproportionate to the young tree it had been attached to. It was a midnight blue, the colour of the deep sea, its skin patterned with strange, protuberant swirls whose tips were reminiscent of eighth notes.

(_Eighth notes?_)

No, it didn't matter.

What did matter was the deep, gnawing hunger threatening to devour her from within, demanding something, anything, to fill the desolate void in her gut. It clawed anxiously at her subconscious, shrieking _EAT EAT EAT EAT_, a greedy child so immersed in its own desires it would allow no other course of action.

The girl stumbled towards the fallen fruit without a second thought and bore upon it with the ferocity of a rabid animal, her baby teeth tearing viciously through the crispy flesh. It tasted foul, an unpalatable amalgamation of bitter and sour and too sweet, but she couldn't care less about such trite details when she was this starvingravenous_hungryhungryhungry_

She managed to devour the entire fruit before she passed out.

* * *

Her second awakening was even less pleasant than the first. Her throat was sore, her mouth tasted disgusting, there was something crusted around her lips, and, worst of all, a sour, rotten odour besieged her nose with the viciousness of a striking snake.

_Wha...?_

As the girl opened her eyes, she saw the origin of the smell was a puddle of barely digested vomit that, she realised as she registered the acrid taste in her throat, had come from her own stomach.

She gagged as she sat up, and then gagged again when she caught another whiff of the foul smell. The girl slowly staggered to her feet and kicked some loose dirt over the mess, to save herself from becoming sick a second time. She already felt queasy at the mere sight of it.

She had to wash the taste away. This wasn't a desert, there had to be at least a clean puddle, somewhere.

The girl began to explore the strange location she had found herself in, peering around the multitude of bushes and trees. She caught sight of an area that seemed brighter than the rest and curiously made her way towards it. Through the thinning trees, she could see something glittering brightly, capturing her easily wayward attention.

_What's that?_

The girl trotted towards the shimmering mass, and was amazed when she finally freed herself from the entrapment of trees: the ocean gleamed bright and blue in every direction, reflecting the clear sky as far as eyes could see. She cheered and happily infringed upon the calm scene, running towards the mass of water and stomping in the cool liquid, splashing around with squinting eyes and a gleeful grin.

As she moved to take a sip, however, something stayed her hand.

_No!_ her body screamed. _No, no, no!_

The girl halted her actions; the thought of disobeying this sudden impulse flittered through her mind, and was promptly dismissed. She exited the ocean and made her way back to the forest to search for another source of water, enjoying the soft feeling of sand caressing her feet as she padded along the warm beach. As the girl plunged back into the thick collection of trees, she spotted a strange purple creature perched on a high branch - but when she looked a second time, it was gone.

* * *

The girl slurped happily at the clear stream she had stumbled upon.

If she hadn't clumsily fallen through the thick foliage it had been hidden under, the trickle of freshwater would have gone overlooked, and she would have been left blindly searching for the rest of the day, if not longer - a state of affairs that was troublesome at best and fatal at worst.

If the girl had been older, and more aware of the workings of the world, she would have thought that perhaps God favoured her survival.

As it was, the young child was incapable of taking notice of such things, focused as she was in quenching her desperate thirst.

She sat back and wiped her mouth. Needs thus met, the girl found a mossy niche between the large roots of a tree and curled up for a nap.

* * *

The girl was awakened a third time by a low, guttural growl that raised the hairs on the nape of her neck and sent a chill ghosting down her spine.

Her eyes shot open in fear.

Across the stream, less than three meters away, was a large, slathering beast with gristly brown fur, its stubby legs dwarfed by a barreled trunk. Black, beady eyes regarded her maliciously, obviously having targeted her as its next meal. The girl wanted to scream - her cracked lips were already parted - but her voice was caught in her throat and refused to budge. Her trembling muscles refused harsh movement, so slowly, ever so slowly, she stood up and pushed herself against the tree she had been settled under. Her hands, unseen, fumbled against the rough bark in search of a handhold, something she could grab onto and climb.

When the beast shifted and growled again, the girl threw all caution to the wind and began to try to scale the tree, tiny fingers finding nooks and crevices that were barely there as she launched herself upwards. Dirty nails split under the abuse, but fright and adrenaline numbed her to the pain, and her sheer will to live overpowered the harsh trembling of her strained muscles. The monster, as if realizing that its prey was escaping, gave a soul-rattling bellow before charging at her, deceptively stout legs crossing the short distance in a blur.

The girl scrambled higher up the tree, disregarding the splinters gouging into the pads of her fingers as she tugged and pulled at the wood she had attached herself to. Her toes dug into various cracks and propelled her against gravity as she caught sight of a nearby branch. Small, desperate hands grasped at the thick bough, and the girl managed to lift herself onto it just before the beast slammed its entire weight at the tree.

The large plant shook but proudly remained standing, even as the creature rammed it a second, third, fourth time.

The frightened girl clung onto the branch as the beast circled the trunk from below, snuffling and snorting at the base of the tree. After a few moments, it sat down, apparently intending to wait her out. Hungry black eyes stared up at her, and the girl resigned herself to being trapped until it went away, or got tired and fell asleep.

* * *

She was hungry again.

The girl peeked down, but the monster was still there, still awake. She surveyed her surroundings, not sure what she was looking for, but hoping she would see something to solve her problem.

As if in response to her distress, the girl's eyes were drawn to a bundle of colorful fruits a few trees away. In fact, now that she was looking closely, she could see several such bundles dispersed throughout the canopy of leaves above her.

_Up._

That decided, the child began to scale the tree she had been resting on, though without her earlier desperation she found it harder to ignore the stinging pain in her extremities. She stumbled and slipped several times, but eventually managed to bring herself onto the branch above her.

The girl stopped and stared at the colorful fruits that seemed to tease her from their location on an adjacent tree, separated from her clutches by a fair gap. Without further consideration, she then ran straight along her branch and launched herself across the divide. The girl tripped and botched her landing, but the bough she was now on was wider than she was tall, so instead of falling off, she merely rolled to a stop.

She sprawled across the branch and laughed with exhilaration, her childish mind unable to register the danger she had been in just moments prior. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, unlike her instinctual response to loud, scary monsters, the girl had no ingrained fear of heights, and had no concept of the fatal consequence of falling at such a height. She only knew that she had done something fun, and that her treat was now within grabbing distance.

The girl scrambled up the trunk of her tree, her fingers and toes finding purchase much more easily now, and reached out for a succulent red fruit.

* * *

**Kaienreki 1505**

**October**

* * *

The girl stared at the strange purple creature perched in front of her. Its plumage ruffled at her scrutiny, but it gave no further acknowledgment of her presence. She peeled the orange fruit in her hand - when she first found the grove of orange fruits, she had made the horrifying mistake of biting straight through the skin of one - and munched on it as she considered the patchy collection of feathers.

The first time she'd seen it, its plumes had all been thin and airy and slicked back. Now, it was covered in a motley mix-match of its original thin feathers and new, thick feathers that stood on end. She wondered if the creature didn't get hot, but decided that was probably why the thick ones were all lifted like that.

* * *

**Kaienreki 1505**

**November**

* * *

The girl grinned as she flew from branch to branch, strands of short red hair pushed back by the light breeze she was creating. On the ground below, the beast that had been chasing her for the better part of the day hissed angrily as it slithered after her fleeing shadow.

She wasn't sure why it was chasing her, since it wouldn't be able to reach her even if it did catch up. In fact, she wasn't sure why all of the monsters liked to target her so much. She could barely ever put a foot on the ground because of them; though, to be fair, she barely ever needed to, not when everything she needed was up in the trees. The only creatures that never tried to eat her were the feathered ones that lived in the branches with her. Fortunately, they were also the _only _creatures that lived in the branches with her.

The regularity of the beast attacks had escalated to the point that she had made a game out of it, seeing if she could reach the warm golden area - which seemed to be a forbidden area for them - before the monsters could catch up to her. She used to lose often, back when she was still unsure about the layout of this forest, but now it was rare for her not to win.

The girl jumped across a gap - and nearly flew into a purple feathered creature, who squawked indignantly at her.

"Wah!"

She swerved in midair to avoid the collision, catching the branch she would have landed on with both hands and swinging herself over the bough to land in a crouch.

"Suhpised me!" she scolded, waving her hands around. The creature, who would usually have flown away by now, warbled at her in something that sounded like a warning.

The girl took this chance to observe the creature in confusion. Its feathers were all thick now, and all standing on end. She'd found some of the thinner purple feathers scattered around in between the leaves, and the girl couldn't understand why the creature would purposefully replace its cool plumes for these thicker ones, especially when it was already so hot. Why would it do that?

Her train of thought was broken as an angry hiss sounded from below. The girl stomped her foot in frustration as she realized that she had lost the game.

* * *

**Kaienreki 1505**

**December**

* * *

Her breaths came in violent gasps as she forced her shivering legs to carry her through the canopy. When she slipped, her hands, numb from the chill that was permeating her pores, scrabbled clumsily at the hard, frosted wood.

She didn't understand. Why was everything so cold? It had been so hot when she went to sleep…

She had to get to the golden area. Surely, that place was still warm.

The girl heard a familiar squawk, and she paused to look for the purple creature. When she found it, she was surprised to see that all of its feathers were laid back against its body, instead of standing on their ends like they usually were.

_Warm…_

She began to slowly make her way towards the creature, who sat patiently on its perch, as if waiting for her. When she was only a few steps away, the girl tripped.

Her head slammed against wood, and blue eyes closed off from the world.

* * *

**AN**

For those of you who also read Fuyu no Sakura, this story is what's been taking me so long to update haha. My first foray into One Piece! If you can believe it, I read One Piece properly (I'd stopped at Water 7 years back) just to write fanfiction about it, rather than the other way around. What is wrong with me. Also, I have no idea if the italics are how three year olds actually think - babies are such mysterious creatures.

The strange occurrence at the end will be explained next chapter, as well as a name. Plus Shanks! (I hope he's not OOC, that gorgeous bastard.)

Please drop a line (or two, or five)! I understand that nothing much has happened yet, but even an "I'm interested" would be nice. :)

According to people who know Japanese better than I do, Kaienreki means "calendar/age of the sea circle". It came up a few times in the manga, and I'm using it, since it appears to be canon.


	2. Overture - Prelude II

**Age 4**

* * *

**Kaienreki 1506**

**January**

* * *

"Land ho!"

Red-haired Shanks stepped onto the foredeck of the _Red Race_ with a grin, one hand holding a straw hat firmly onto his head and the other hanging from his red sash by a thumb. As he looked out into the distance, a northern wind playfully tousled the strands of red that peeked out from under his hat.

The pirate quickly spotted the mass of land up ahead, and his grin grew wider.

_Hyōhen Island, huh?_

'Hyōhen' or 'sudden change' island was known formally for its random overnight seasonal changes, and less formally for the fearsome beasts crawling within its forests. Of particular note was the notoriously territorial Noivern Eagle, a purple bird whose vicious talons had rent through the throats of many an unfortunate sailor. Shanks fondly recalled being chased around by several of those purple sacks of feathers back when he was still the Roger Pirates' cabin boy; the memory of his old captain's laughter still rang boisterously in his ears.

The ship wasn't running low on supplies, but he _was _feeling rather nostalgic...

"Men," Shanks called, feeling the expectant eyes of his crew at his back. "How would you feel about doing a bit of exploring?"

* * *

The girl stared at the pile of fruits near her blue fingers, her chest rising and falling with each dangerously shallow breath. She should eat one, she knew. Purple-san had gone through the trouble of getting these for her, so she should at least eat one.

Her dilated pupils zeroed in on an insect crawling on one of the fruits.

_Purple... like purple-san... puuurple... purrrple... purppple... purpllle..._

She blinked lethargically as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Purple-san tilt its head. The large wing draped around her lifted and her companion suddenly flew off.

* * *

Shanks strolled down the calm length of beach, with only his own thoughts for company. He could hear the cheerful ruckus in the forest as his men released their pent up energy; it made him chuckle, but for now, he was content to revisit days long gone. Though the cold nipped at his skin viciously, the pirate remained unbothered, kept warm by memories of the past, of childish arguments and clashing swords, of impossible victories and a deep, bellowing laugh. His scars pulsed discomfortingly at the intrusion of a more recent memory, but Shanks ignored it, relegating the throbbing to the back of his mind with the ease of practice.

His left hand cautiously shifted to the hilt of his sabre as a piercing cry suddenly tore through the air. Something purple swooped down at him, but instead of going for his throat as he'd expected, the bird grabbed his hat and flew off in the direction of the forest.

"Wait! Stop!" he yelled, enraged at the theft of his treasure. He sprinted after it. "Why, you - "

The redhead let out a controlled burst of Haoshoku Haki. The eagle wobbled in midair and careened towards a tree, before stopping the collision right before impact. To his astonishment, it shook itself and corrected its path, gliding away from him with merely a sharp glance.

"Well, I suppose you aren't the most fearsome bird in South Blue for nothing," he muttered, giving a surprised huff of air. He contemplated using a stronger pulse of haki, but decided against it when the eagle gave him another glance, as if making sure that he was still following.

_Now… what could this cheeky fellow want from me?_

* * *

The girl slumped limply against the tree, her half-opened eyes the only indication of life. She blinked drowsily.

_Sleepy..._

She was trying to stay awake, but why? Was she waiting for someone? She couldn't remember.

Well, there was nothing wrong with a nap, she decided, her eyelids drooping closed. Nothing at all.

The moment her eyes slipped shut, the girl stopped breathing.

* * *

As soon as the Noivern Eagle dropped his hat onto one of the low branches of a tree, Shanks grabbed it - and then stared ahead in shock. Curled up in the junction between branch and trunk was a little girl barely clothed in dirty brown rags, her skin tinged blue.

To his horror, she didn't appear to be breathing.

Shanks burst into a flurry of movement, hurrying to the child and checking her pulse - weak, slow, erratic, but there, definitely there; it couldn't have been more than a few seconds since her last breath - and then ripping his cloak off and wrapping her up in it. He laid her out on the floor.

Tilting the child's head back with one hand and pinching her nose with the other, Shanks bent down and covered her mouth with his own.

_One... Two... Three... Four... Five..._

He lifted his head, briefly checked for breathing, and began performing chest compressions with the heel of his palm, making sure to moderate his strength so as not to crush her.

_Ten... Twenty... Thirty..._

_She's still not breathing._

Again.

_One... Two..._

_Ten... Twenty... Thirty..._

He grit his teeth. The fluttering heart under his fingertips was depending on him, it _needed_ him, and, dammit, he wouldn't fail this child.

Again.

_One... Two..._

_Ten... Twenty... Thirty..._

Again.

_One... Two..._

_Ten... Twenty... Thirty..._

Again.

Again.

_Again._

Just as he was about to go back for the seventh cycle, Shanks felt a puff of air against his cheek. He sat back and slid a hand down his mouth, grinning in relief.

That grin quickly slid off when he rubbed the child's cheek with a thumb, and realized exactly why her skin was blue. He sighed and lifted her, gently pressing her to his chest as he rushed through the forest towards his ship and crewmates, his haki keeping the less savoury creatures at bay. He may be the captain, but when it came to something like this, he knew he was useless.

* * *

"Benn!"

Benn Beckman turned to see his captain darting out of the trees with a bundle in his arms. He took a drag of his cigarette and raised a brow curiously. Was it treasure? Food? Alcohol? No, Shanks was holding it much too gently for it to be anything of the sort. Treasure, he knew, wouldn't inspire this kind of reaction - though certain types of sake might.

The pirate strode towards his panicking captain, and sighed when he realized what was in the man's arms.

_A child._

A very young child, perhaps three years old, looking as pale as death. Her physical state hinted that she had been on this island for a while; from the looks of her, it was less than a year but definitely more than a few months. Far longer than one would expect, considering that the forest was crawling with large carnivores. Had she been abandoned here by her parents?

As he reached the captain, Beckman's eyes were drawn to a delicate gold locket hanging from the girl's neck.

_No... not abandoned. A__t least not willingly._

"She's freezing," he noted, touching the back of his fingers to her cheek. "Must be a severe state of hypothermia."

"Go get Musashi. We're gonna save her."

The Akagami Pirate huffed in amusement, because of course his captain - who was unreasonable at worst and whimsical at best - would find a half-dead child on an uninhabited island and, despite not knowing a thing about her, decide to save her without regard to the consequences. He respected that side of Shanks - in fact, it was part of the reason he'd joined him, four years ago - but it was his duty as the first mate to confirm whether the man knew what he was doing.

He expelled the warm smoke in his lungs. "If you help this girl, her life will be your responsibility."

Shanks's eyes scorched like the sun, fierce and determined and unrelenting. "I know."

"Just making sure, captain," Benn Beckman answered, smirking.

* * *

Several hours later found Shanks cuddled the comatose girl to his bare chest as he sat ensconced in a mound of blankets - as she was still slightly cold to the touch, his ship doctor had said that body heat would help and the redhead was more than happy to lend his own.

"I wonder what her name is?" he mused aloud.

His first mate glanced at him from his position against the wall, where he was lighting another cigarette. "You could check the trinket around her neck."

_Trinket?_

Shanks checked the child's throat, and sure enough, there hung a fragile looking gold chain going down to her naval, surprisingly clean in comparison to the rest of her. The locket threaded onto it was plain but for the black silhouette of a small, plump bird on the front, and his fingers stroked what felt like an embossment on the back. When he pried the locket open, he found a small photo of a cheerful infant with clear turquoise eyes and wisps of crimson hair. To his mild frustration, there were no clues as to where she had come from, or who her parents were.

Hoping that this, at least, would provide some answers, Shanks flipped the locket over to take a look at the raised metal on the back, which he quickly realised were letters.

"_Saezuri Kane_." Her name, he presumed. And a little lower, an endearment. "_My darling songbird_."

Shanks glanced down in surprise as the girl in his arms seemed to respond to his voice. It was admittedly only a twitch of her lips, but it was the most movement he had seen from her since he'd found her.

"Saezuri Kane," he repeated experimentally. There was no reaction.

_Then, perhaps..._

"Songbird."

The child - Saezuri Kane - gave a soft coo. Shanks grinned and made to hold her tighter, but then stopped himself when he realized he was already getting attached.

"Captain." Apparently, Benn had recognized it too. "What will you do?"

"We don't know where to return her, or if there's anyone looking for her, and she's not awake to tell us." He sighed and leaned back against the headboard. "The lighthouse keeper at the Twin Capes is a doctor and a friend of mine. We'll pass by the area on our way to East Blue, so I might as well ask if he can take her in."

"And if he can't?"

"If he can't... the 'Weakest Sea' is a great place to grow up, last I heard." Shanks's contemplative expression shifted to something more reminiscent of his usual cheer. "We just have to find a nice little village and drop the lass off. Shouldn't be that hard, right?"

"Aye." Benn's expression was unreadable, but the redhead could see that his first mate doubted it would be so simple.

Privately, he agreed. He didn't trust in things like fate, but his discovery of the child was lined with too many coincidences for comfort.

* * *

The next morning, Shanks awoke to hammering on his door and a warm weight in his arms. "Captain! We're nearing the calm belt!"

He blinked blearily. He'd been up all night watching 'Saezuri Kane', making sure her breathing and heartbeat remained stable, and observing for signs of wakefulness. When had he fallen asleep?

"Captain!"

"I'm going, I'm going," Shanks groused as he rubbed a hand down his face. He tucked the girl in the pile of warm blankets, snatched a shirt off the back of a chair, shoving his arms through the sleeves without bothering to button up, and then grabbed his hat off his desk. When he pulled the door open, he was met with the cheerful face of Cranio, his navigator.

"Rough night, captain?"

The redhead yawned. "You could say that. How close are we?"

"Just under a minute."

"Right, right." Shanks did a stretch as he stepped onto the large deck of his ship, the Akagami Pirates' navigator at his side.

As he made his way across the decks, he noted that most of his crew looked rather chuffed at something; many of them were grinning as they worked, and those who had nothing to do were waiting around with anticipatory gazes directed at the newer crewmates. Of apparent interest was Blackeye Gora, their newest recruit from Karate Island, who, along with his monkey Monstar, had been with the crew for less than a month now.

"I'm guessing nobody told them?"

Cranio adjusted his white gloves and grinned at his captain. "And miss out on their reactions? Not a chance. Put on a show for us will you, captain? I'm hoping for a few screams this time."

"Pray for a big one then," Shanks answered, laughing. The blond navigator fell back as they reached the foredeck, and Shanks stood alone, arms crossed, shoulders squared, and feet wide set. His eyes sharpened as the wind rustling through his open shirt fell away.

"We've entered the calm belt!"

An unnatural calm blanketed the sea, and the sky quivered with tension. The water directly ahead of the ship began to ripple. The men could feel the air pulsing, once, twice, three times...

An enormous sea king suddenly burst into view, its gaping maw revealing rows of jagged teeth and a long, writhing tongue. Slitted pupils regarded the pirates with a vicious hunger as it reared back, and Shanks could hear panicked yells and shouted curses from behind him when the head shot towards them.

_There's your screaming, Cranio_, he thought in amusement, before allowing everything but his own determination to fall away.

Shanks took a slow, calm breath. He met the sea king's eyes with his own and the beast in stopped in its tracks, the strength of his Haki overpowering its will.

"Take us across," he commanded, his voice deep and steady.

There was a tense pause as the two held each other's gazes.

The sea king broke eye contact first. It dove beneath the surface of the water and the _Red Race_ abruptly began to move forward, seemingly of its own volition.

For a few moments, there was a shocked silence, before a few snickers broke the air. The quiet chortling quickly exploded into full blown howling, to Shanks's curiosity.

_What's so funny?_

He turned - unbidden, a chuckle bubbled out from his lips. Gora was standing in the middle of the deck looking hysterically stupefied, eyes as wide as saucers with a single finger pointing at the sky where the sea king had been. His jaw hung somewhere around his knees, and his monkey was dangling from it by a single paw with a similar pose. Even Benn was smirking around the cigarette in his mouth.

"Pff - " Shanks couldn't hold it in anymore and laughter burst out of his chest. "DAHAHAHAHA!"

The rest of the crew cheered and whooped in response to their captain's mirth, and Gora finally reigned in his shock and joined in.

* * *

**AN**

Hyōhen means both "sudden change" and "complete change", which I found a rather accurate description of the island.

Usually I get the second chapter out within a few days of the first, but Shanks was giving me a hard time. Do I make him more serious? Less? How flippant? How casual is his interaction with his crew? What does he call his first mate? (_ASDFKAJL_... I love him but I hate him.) Speaking of Benn Beckman, after much deliberation, I decided his surname is probably Beckman. Probably. Oda-sensei sometimes uses the Western naming system, like Edward Newgate (I refuse to believe Edward is the surname! I refuse!) and Benn is just easier to say, haha.

Good? Bad? Please tell me! (Literally just one of those two words is okay, haha. Don't pull your punches!)

_Notes_:

\- The Akagami Pirates were in South Blue at the beginning of the chapter, if you couldn't tell.


	3. Overture - Dawn I

**Age 4**

* * *

**Kaienreki 1506**

**January**

* * *

Saezuri Kane awoke with a keening whine as a wave of hunger crashed over her like a vindictive punch to the gut, a physical blow that briefly left her crippled. She laid still and panted for breath; it was the only thing she could do until the hunger pangs ebbed away.

When the claws of starvation finally released her from its grip, Kane found that she could barely move any part of her body. She'd attributed this to her empty stomach but clearly that was not the case. Her very sinews sang with discomfort and even the slightest spasm of a finger was met with stiff rebellion.

The warm glow visible through the fabric of her eyelids meant that it had to be day, and the soft, alien texture under her twitching fingertips told her she wasn't on any of the surfaces she had become familiar with since waking upon the island. Her ears caught the muffled strains of something peculiar, sounding as if it came from a fair distance away: a strange animal was calling 'yo-ho-ho' and making a variety of other unidentifiable noises.

Long, deep breaths divulged the intimate, dusty perfume of wood, blended harmoniously with something sharp and tangy and salty and musky, freedom and open skies - the essence of the ocean. And… there was something else. The smell of the forest after a heavy thunderstorm - strange, as there hadn't been a thunderstorm for a very long time - was weaved through with cords of a heavier scent, something smooth, deep, powerful. It was exotic and unfamiliar and strangely comforting.

Kane tried to pry open her eyes only to find that they refused to budge, to her frustration. No matter; if they would not open, she would _make _them open.

Her nails snagged on the soft material under her and brought it into her palms as she slowly gathered her hands into fists. Her arms trembled violently as she lifted them, but she ignored her protesting muscles and stubbornly forced her hands to her eyes, scrubbing at the crusted tears and manually tugging the eyelids up with her fingers. The limbs spasmed and dropped away, but her eyes remained open, pupils furiously flitting around. Enclosed walls of wood on all sides, the blue sky hidden but for a circular hole... This wasn't the forest! It was a - a -

(_A room._)

Yes, that!

Kane worked her face into a puzzled frown. There wasn't a single 'room' on the entire island, as far as she was aware.

A series of thumps approached, distracting the girl from her thoughts, and a rectangular section of the farthest wall swung inwards, revealing someone with a shock of red hair, partially covered by something yellow and circular.

The man grinned and walked towards her. "Oh, you're up!"

She stared at him and blinked. A hazy vision of another man with similarly coloured hair overlapped with the image of this stranger. He was taller and broader around the shoulders, with a serene smile that had soothed her for as long as she could remember.

(_Violent gales and a malevolent darkness, bullets of rain punishing any exposed skin, the small ship threatening to capsize with each thrash of the ocean. He had smiled, then, even as the sea roiled angrily around them. There had been resignation in the lines of his face, but he had smiled because she was crying, and above all else, he had to take care of his treasure._)

Memories she had been subconsciously repressing for the past several months flooded into her mind at the sight of this man, so familiar and yet so foreign, and in the wake of such terror, the four year old could do nothing else but cry.

* * *

"UWAAAH!"

Shanks blinked in surprise as the tiny child on the bed burst into tears. His smile fell into a concerned frown.

"Hey little songbird, what's the matter?"

Was she in pain? Had Musashi missed something? The doctor had said that there were no wounds, and that her only physical ailments were hypothermia and mild malnutrition, but there was always the possibility that he had overlooked a smaller cut, or a sprain -

\- he wanted to hit himself for even thinking something like that. Of course Musashi wouldn't have missed anything; he was Shanks's trusty nakama, after all.

Of course, this meant that the injury had to be emotional, instead, and Shanks wasn't exactly an expert in comforting a bawling three year old - and he was rather convinced that these weren't the kind of tears where acting silly would help.

Shanks knelt by the bed and tried to remember what he'd seen mothers do for their children. He engulfed the girl in an embrace, sliding himself onto the bed and lifting her into a sitting position on his lap.

Now what?

This would have been so much easier if he'd ever had little siblings, he thought to himself. He didn't regret any part of his childhood, but the knowledge would have come in handy right about now. He absentmindedly patted the child's head, and was surprised to find that she was beginning to calm already, loud sobs quieting to wet snuffles.

After a few moments, Shanks peered down at the currently quiet girl. "You okay now, songbird?"

Large, watery turquoise eyes stared up at him. "Who...?"

"Haha, I guess I haven't introduced myself yet!" He grinned. "My name is Shanks. I'm the captain of the ship you're on. I found you in the forest, and I couldn't leave a freezing little girl there in good conscience, now could I?" He didn't mention his profession, in case that brought up another bout of tears; the redhead was very aware of the possibility that her parents could have been murdered by pirates.

His words were met with a squinting, confused look. "K-kun-see-unce?"

"I mean that I'd feel bad about leaving you there," he clarified.

"Why?" she demanded, with the oblivious authority that all children seemed to have.

_Of course the kid would want a lesson on morality as soon as she woke up_, Shanks thought, amused.

"See, it's like this: if I left you there, you would have died - do you know what death is?" She nodded, and he did not allow himself to falter at the quivering of her lower lip, understanding that a distraction would be better for her than another bout of tears. " - even though I could have saved you. Every life is important, and knowing that I let you die would make me very unhappy with myself. Only a Bad Man lets little girls die when they can easily save them, and I don't want to be one of those."

The girl's eyes became hazy, and Shanks wasn't sure why.

"It's fine if you don't get it..."

"No!" she told him, eyes refocusing, tiny hands feebly tugging at his shirt ends to emphasize her point. "Get it!"

"Alright, alright, no need to get mad." He chuckled. "You must be hungry, huh? Let's see if Yong has anything for you."

Shanks lifted the girl onto his shoulders as he began to walk out of the room; the sudden change in height and the unfamiliar sensation of traveling forward as her feet hung midair made her squeal in surprise and then in delight, attracting the attention of several of his nearby crewmates.

"The lassie's up?" Shanks turned as Fuuma Musashi made his way up to them, pink hair in its usual topknot. A grin split the man's face in two. "I hope you were on your way to see me, captain!"

The redhead reached up to scratch his cheek with a finger, his face cheerfully contrite. "Ah, I forgot. I was just going to go to the galley to see if there's any food for the child."

"We can do the check-up after her meal then. I'm going to give Yong a list of foods the lass is allowed to eat later, but for now, please tell him that a small bowl of fish congee should be fine. Oh, but lots of water first. And, when you bring her to the infirmary, we might need Benn-san too, so if you don't mind..."

"That shouldn't be a problem."

With that settled, Musashi bustled off, presumably to tend to the men who had hurt themselves in the drunken brawl earlier on deck, and Shanks continued on his journey to food, the child on his shoulders peering at her surroundings curiously as she clutched onto his ears with a loose, weak grip.

When Shanks finally reached the door to the galley, he pushed the door open with a jovial grin and a greeting. "Yong, you busy right now?"

"Never too busy for you, captain," said Sun-shin Yong, wiping his hands with a washcloth.

"Say, can you make this birdie a little something to eat? I suspect she hasn't had much in the way of food for a while now."

Yong straightened up at the prospect of a job and adjusted his orange sunglasses. "Anything specific, captain?"

"Musashi said a little bit of fish congee should be fine."

"Fish congee, huh?" Almost without conscious thought, the pirate had begun wandering around the kitchen, his hands snapping out to grab this or that utensil, measuring ingredients here and there. As he immersed himself into the creation of a new masterpiece, he began to hum a song Shanks vaguely remembered brightening the galley during the late hours of the evenings, after the rush of dinner had given way to a sleepy quiet, when only few found the energy or the need to stay conscious.

Shanks left Yong to continue mumbling his jovial tune as he worked. The redhead lowered 'Saezuri Kane' onto a wooden stool in front of a long kitchen island, frowning when he realised she would be too small to reach her meal. His eyes cast around for something she could sit on top of, but there was nothing. Maybe if he sat her on top of the table?

He lifted the girl onto the countertop, ignoring Yong's indignant look, and nodded to himself. Yes, that would work.

Shanks gave the girl a cup of water and watched her eagerly suck on the straw for a few moments, realizing that this meant she knew how eating utensils were used. He still wasn't sure how old she was; she physically seemed to be two, but Shanks knew that it wasn't likely for a two year old to know how to feed herself. In fact, it was still strange that a three year old could take care of her own needs, but, just looking at her, he found it hard to believe she was older than that.

The muted singing abruptly ended, and the finished porridge was finally set in front of her, steaming faintly and smelling of warm comfort.

"Dig in, girlie." A tanned hand ruffled feathery red hair, before the man with the dragon tattooed on his shoulder returned to his chores.

Kane stared intently at the small bowl, her head cocked to the side, and slowly reached out to grab the spoon that had been set in the congee. She fumbled clumsily with the utensil for a moment and managed to scoop up a small portion of the thick liquid; however, the visible trembling of her hands became even more pronounced at the added weight, and the porridge dribbled off the spoon and onto her outstretched legs before it could reach her lips.

Shanks started in surprise, glad that Yong had taken the effort to cool the porridge to a manageable temperature before serving it. He'd known, in an abstract way, that the girl was in bad shape, but she'd seemed almost fine until now so he hadn't expected it to be _this_ bad.

The redhead took up a napkin and wiped down the mess before gently taking the spoon from the child's shaking fingers. He'd never spoon fed a little girl before, but just this once he had none of his usual qualms against taking a parent's role. Not when eyes like clear tropical waters peered up at him so trustingly.

* * *

Benn Beckman leaned back in his chair, considering the open book in front of him. He had borrowed it from Cranio earlier, wondering if there wasn't something that would clue him into how the girl had managed to survive for so long on that island. The book recorded information on all known South Blue islands, and while Hyōhen Island was uninhabited by humans, it was in no way unknown, mostly due its proximity to both the Grand Line and the Red Line. In fact, it was heretofore uninhabited for that very same reason; while cowards avoided the island, and weaklings were easily picked off, the more powerful did not settle here because any who bothered to sail this close to Reverse Mountain could not ignore the lure of adventure on the Grand Line. Hyōhen served as a pit stop to such people, and nothing else.

And while it was not unimaginable for pirates and the cruellest of sailors to abandon their bastard children in dangerous places such as these, it _was_ strange that they would take the pains of adorning her with such a valuable piece of jewelry. From the chain to the locket, each component was skillfully crafted with high quality gold, and he didn't doubt that it costed several hundred thousand bellies. As it was presumably addressed _to_ her, with her picture in it, she hadn't just stolen it from somebody else. This was a child well loved, and her parents were either frantically searching for her, or, as was more likely from the state of the girl, dead.

So at least they didn't have to worry about being waylaid with searching for the girl's family.

Benn allowed a smirk to curve his lips, because if Shanks ever heard that thought, the first mate would be scolded to an inch of his life for being callous.

But there was a more urgent matter than the child's origins:

How had she stayed alive for so long?

A child that weak, that defenseless, should not have been able to survive amidst that kind of danger. According to the captain, Saezuri Kane had been lying curled up on a tree branch, and a Noivern Eagle had led him straight to her. Now, if the girl was intelligent, and, more importantly, _lucky_, she could avoid the carnivorous monsters crawling through the underbrush by staying up in the trees. Fruit was plentiful everywhere, and water could be gotten if the visits were brief and the girl was quick. But the trees meant encountering the many birds of prey nesting on the island, particularly the aforementioned purple eagle.

Of course, if the child was some sort of hidden danger, that would explain her continued survival. He _had_ heard of a devil fruit that allowed the user to turn themselves into a child. But that still wouldn't explain why the Noivern Eagle had, according to the captain, seemed to be taking care of the lass.

Benn tapped the parchment with long fingers worn by coarse ropes and the salt of the sea and by many battles, won and lost.

According to this book, which Cranio insisted was a reliable source, these birds were aggressive towards all species other than their own, regardless of age, or breed, or gender. Taming efforts had all resulted in failure, occasionally even death.

However, it could not be ignored that none of those tamers had been special ability users. There was a devil fruit for everything imaginable, so surely, there had to be one for controlling birds. Perhaps the child had eaten such a power?

A knock on the door brought the pirate out of his musings.

_Well_, Benn Beckman thought, smoothly standing up. _We'll soon find out, won't we?_

* * *

"There aren't any immediate issues concerning her health. Muscle atrophy was minimal, luckily, so the effects of her hypothermia should fade away in a few days, and the malnutrition won't be a problem after a week if she takes one of these pills with every meal. I've taken the liberty to get a blood sample when she was unconscious and she appears to be mildly hypoglycemic - though that's probably from the starvation. She also has iron-deficiency anemia, perhaps due to lack of meat. I gave her several shots while I was at it; mostly vitamins and other supplements, but also a few vaccines for the more common diseases in Paradise, since I doubt she'll encounter any of the rarer ones on my shelf, and she's only had the ones necessary for living in South Blue..."

Having affirmed that the girl wasn't sick anymore, and that she would be completely better in a week, Shanks let the rest of the medical talk go straight over his head and relegated Musashi's voice to a dull drone in the back of his mind. Benn would remember it all for him, and it didn't seem all that important.

_What does hypoglycemic mean anyway? _he wondered absentmindedly, fingers playfully poking at Kane's unprotected sides as she giggled and squirmed on his lap.

"... And as for what you asked, Benn, I haven't been able to find any irregularities in her anatomy, so if she has eaten an akuma no mi, it hasn't affected her physiology, at least not in any discernable way."

Musashi stopped talking, and Shanks only noticed because of the ringing silence that replaced the low murmur in his ears.

"_Captain,_ I can tell when you're not paying attention, you know."

The redhead blinked and stopped tickling the child, his eyes refocusing on the man in front of him. "Ah, sorry. One pill every meal, right? And she'll be all better in a week." Shanks grinned at his crewmate as he reached a hand up to rub the back of his neck.

The Akagami Pirates' doctor sighed in exasperation, but anyone could see the smile playing around his mouth. "I guess those are the important parts. Yes, one pill per meal, for eight days."

There was a tacit understanding amongst them that Shanks would be the one to care for the girl while she was still on the ship; after all, he accepted responsibility for her the moment he decided to save her. If he was indisposed for whatever reason, the Akagami pirates wouldn't hesitate to step in - nor would they be stingy with their help otherwise - but Shanks had a duty to Saezuri Kane's continued existence and such things were not to be simply waved away.

There was a tugging on his shirt, and Shanks glanced down at the child on his lap. She was staring at him intently, as if trying to will him into action through the strength of her eyes.

"Let's play!"

"You're bored, huh?" He couldn't blame her - medical jardon tended to confuse him too, and he was twenty-one, not four. Unfortunately, they still had to get the most difficult part of this check-up over with. "Sorry, but do you think you can answer a few questions before we go play?"

"Questions?"

Benn spoke up and Shanks fell silent, knowing that his first mate had probably put a fair bit of thought into this. "Yes, child. What is your name?"

"Kane!" the child chirped eagerly. The redhead smiled at her enthusiasm.

"Do you know your family name?"

This question was met with a blank stare, and the pirates took that to mean a firm 'no'. Considering her youth, it wasn't that surprising that she didn't know her surname, even if it _was _presumably written on her locket.

"Hmm… How old are you, lass?"

She also looked confused at this, hesitantly holding up three fingers and then pulling them back and tugging at her earlobes. Some sort of internal conflict seemed to stop her from giving an outright response.

"Perhaps I should ask this instead: what is the most recent age you remember being?"

This seemed to have a definite answer, as she confidently announced, "Three! Before island!"

Benn picked up one of the books he'd brought and rifled through it for a few seconds before settling on a page with several pictures of Noivern Eagles, each in various states of molting.

Seeing the collection of photos, Saezuri Kane perked up with a happy little grin. "Purple-san!"

Shanks shared a look with his first mate. It seemed that his assumption had been correct. These birds that _had _been looking after the child, or at least had maintained a friendly relationship with her. If they had attacked her then the reaction would be that of fear, but she seemed genuinely delighted to see the picture, implying that they had given her a reason to be so.

"Child, what did 'purple-san' look like when you first saw him?" Benn asked gesturing towards the book. Shanks knew that if there had been a cigarette in his mouth he would have taken a contemplative drag, but Musashi had banned anyone from smoking in the infirmary.

"Eh - " She squinted at the page for a second before pointing at one of the photos. "That one."

The bird in the picture had sleek, lightweight feathers, suitable for the summer weather that characterized Hyōhen Island for the majority of the year. Under the square photo was a short description: '_Plumage from June to August._'

The girl had most certainly been there for less than a year, as apparent from her lack of preparation for the seasonal switch, so this meant anywhere from seven to five months since she had last been three years old. The passing of the new year meant she was now four which was a bit of a surprise to Shanks.

It was Musashi who spoke next. "Do you have a home, Kane-chan?"

She blinked and gave him a wide, open grin, throwing her arms up in a banzai. "The ocean! Everywhere!"

"Everywhere on the ocean is your home?"

"Uhn!" Shanks chuckled at the pirate-esque answer and tickled the girl again, making her squeal in glee. A suitable response for a child of the sea, as that old guy Whitebeard would have said.

"Then she must have been living on a boat for at least a couple of years, if not her entire life," Benn commented, tapping fingers against his outstretched legs. "It also means we really don't have anywhere to return her to... Child, do you have any family? What happened to your mother and father?"

The redhead's fingers paused in their movement, because that was the dreaded question, wasn't it? There was a reason the kid had been crying her eyes out this morning, and he didn't doubt that her glaring abandonment, whether willing or not, lay at the root of it.

"Little songbird, you said that you knew what death was. Are your parents...?"

Silence. All semblance of happiness had leached out of her rounded face and it was clear as day that Kane was trying her best not to cry, even as she attempted to hold onto a trembling smile. That was an answer in itself.

"Daddy… _they _took him..."

"They?"

"The big waves... and wind... and rain..." The tiny body between his hands began to shiver, likely from the memory of the tempest that had stolen her father. "Black monster going round and round..."

Sudden tropical cyclones that close to the equator were rare but not unheard of, at least not in the perpetual heat of South Blue. It appeared that the child and her father had been caught in a typhoon and her boat had capsized, the grown man caught by the current. It wasn't pirates, as he'd thought might perhaps be the case.

"And your mother?" Shanks shot Benn a glare for the insensitive question, but to his surprise the child only seemed to calm down at this. She sat for a few moments, just gulping lungfuls of air, before gathering herself back into some semblance of her previous mirth.

"Mommy is there!" Kane pointed straight to the sky and Shanks couldn't help but to be confused.

Skypeia? Her mother was Skypeian?

"Mommy is a angel in heaven... daddy said so."

_Oh_.

But instead of the dullness that he would expect to accompany such a proclamation, the child's eyes seemed to regain their cheer. The redhead made a gut assumption that the death wasn't recent, that the kid probably hadn't known her mother very well, if at all, and that the father had regaled her with tales of a beautiful woman standing amongst white clouds, watching down on them fondly, rather than being bogged down by the passing of his lover. Shanks thought that he might have liked to meet this child's father if only his fate had been any different.

"He said - he said she was bravest in the world. Better than any back-sea safe sea soldiers!"

"Is that so," Shanks asked, smiling as he peered down at her. His eyes flickered up when he saw Benn leaning forward.

Black met black.

The slightest incline of his head.

_No._

His first mate still looked intrigued, but took that for the silent order that it was and did not attempt to pry further into the girl's background. The redhead knew that Benn considered his words absolute, even when they were not spoken, even when he was the only one who could perceive what the captain was thinking, and for that, Shanks was thankful.

Suddenly, the little girl became very, very, still, her face scrunching up with concentration; to no one's surprise it was the doctor in the room who recognized that this likely had a physical cause. "What's wrong, Kane-chan?"

"Gonna pee," she told them matter-of-factly.

"WAIT! Stop!" Shanks sprang to his feet, holding the kid out by her armpits. "Hold it! I'll bring you to the washroom, so hold it until then!"

He shot the smirking Benn and snickering Musashi one last glare before he ran out of the room, a squirming child in his hands.

"Please be potty trained, please be potty trained," he chanted, running as fast as he could without suffocating the girl swinging ahead of him. He sighed in relief as he reached his destination without any accidents and plunked the girl on her feet in front of the latrine. "Do - do you know how to use the toilet?"

She gave the white porcelain below her a contemplative look before nodding decisively. "Uhn."

He sighed in relief. "Make sure to flush before you come out!" he told her, making his way out of the room and settling down on the floor in front of the closed door. Shanks sat crosslegged and propped his right elbow on his leg, palm curling around his chin.

With the little girl on ship, they'd have to avoid any major scuffles for a long while, probably a month or longer. It would only take a day or so to cross the Calm Belt at this speed, and perhaps another two or three weeks to reach the Twin Capes depending on the weather, but he knew the probability of Crocus agreeing to take the kid in would be low, with the whale to take care of, and presumptuous pirates to fend off.

It was low, but the redhead still would give it a try. The lighthouse was on their way - less than half a day's detour, not that time was all that important to him - and he hadn't shared a drink with the man in years.

Seven, to be exact.

The day the Roger Pirates disbanded, the Pirate King's final speech to his crew had been glorious, one of his flashiest yet, and they had all cheered through the tears in their eyes and the bitter ache in their guts. A year later and their captain had launched the Great Age of Pirates with his striking final words and a great big grin.

Shanks smiled.

Whoever said the world would end with a whimper had obviously never met Gol D. Roger.

Hearing the door opening behind him, the redhead twisted around to look at the child shuffling out, taking a brief moment to marvel at how _small_ she was, shorter than him even when he was sitting on the ground and slouching forward.

"You flushed?"

"Yup!"

"Did you wash your hands?" From the way she blinked and tilted her head, she hadn't. "Dahaha, no need to look so confused. Go wash your hands, kid."

The redhead watched her toddle back into the room, and, after a few moments, realized she wouldn't be able to reach the sink. He stood up and followed after her, planning on grabbing one of the several wooden wash stools in the connected bathing room, only to come to a full stop in the doorway.

Somehow, in the brief time that she had been out of sight, Kane had managed to douse herself in something white and foamy - shaving cream. There was a large jar of it rolling on the ground beside her, its lid still lying on a shelf far out of her reach.

He stared at her, bewildered, and she stared back, equally bewildered.

The dumbstruck silence was finally broken by Kane's tremulous offering of, "... B-bathtime?"

"..." The baffled expression on his face slowly melted away, to be replaced with twitching lips and twinkling eyes.

Shanks threw back his head and laughed.

Somehow, he just knew this was a sign of the weeks to come.

* * *

**Author's Note**

In which the Akagami Pirates pierce together the mystery behind the girl, little by little... and Shanks has no clue how children and bathrooms work.

Many people write Shanks as someone who's treated like an idiot by others, except rare moments when he's suddenly serious. I do not agree with this. When I see a fic that involves Shanks's crew or Luffy insulting or hitting him, even when playfully, I can't help but to shake my head. This is a man who, despite his close bonds to his crew, is called 'captain' by every single one of them. They call him not his first name, as the Strawhat Pirates call Luffy, but his title, always his title, even when they're laughing at (with) him. Sure, he can act silly, and he's rather laid back most of the time, but anyone in the manga who has spent any substantial length of time around him (except those who are full out idiots themselves) seem to understand that there is great depth of character within the man; his presence demands a certain level of respect. Besides, more than anyone else, the crew would understand that he will not retaliate against abuse to himself, and I supremely doubt that they would ever take advantage of that knowledge in such a way. Perhaps a bit of teasing, but a smack to the head? Um. Probably not. Of course, that may just be my opinion. Please feel free to leave your own! :)

Anyways... Kane's father is an OC, but the mother is a canon character. Her identity is a secret, so please don't try to throw names at me; I'm not giving yeses or nos no matter who you guess. ;)

I don't know if any of you have been in foods class at school, but if you so much as touch your bum against a countertop, you'll get a scathing lecture. I haven't been brave enough to try it in the restaurant kitchen where I started work (first job, yay! it's been a few weeks; we'll see how long this lasts), but I expect the result to be much the same, if not much worse. The only reason Shanks got off so easily is 'cuz he's the captain, haha.

According to Luffy, Shanks's crew was always in song. Expect this story to have _a lot_ of singing, though not so much by the Akagami Pirates as by the protagonist.

I assume One Piece operates on the universal birthday system, where everyone ages a year on the same day, in this case, January 1st (google search 'Eastern age reckoning' if you're curious). There has never been any mention of anyone becoming a year older mid-journey, and birthdays never seem to be taken into account, so… (I mean, Sanji's birthday is March 2 and Zoro's is November 11, but both of them are apparently the same age the whole time, despite the passage of at least 6 months, where Sanji was sure to have been older than Zoro at some point if we're going by actual birthdays.)

'That old guy Whitebeard', lol. If Shanks is 21, Whitebeard is 56... not _that _old.

Also, the only reason Shanks avoided being peed on is because I love him so much. I swear, if he was even slightly lower on my hierarchy of favorite characters, he would have had a wet lap. Kane _is _toilet trained, but only barely, and if she's allowed to piss on the spot, she will. (What do you think she did on the island?)

**Notes**:

\- All the named Akagami crewmates so far are based on two pictures with the same members in them, but separated by 10 years: the one from the Summit War of Marineford, and another one from when Luffy (who's also in the picture) is 7. They're both on the Akagami Pirates article page in the One Piece wiki, though I used the one with child Luffy more than the other, since that's closer to their current ages in the story.

\- Yong is Korean for 'dragon', and Yi Sun-shin was a Korean naval commander in the 1500s. Yes, I made that dragon tattoo guy (the one at the back of the picture, with orange sunglasses) Korean, though technically Sun-shin should be the given name rather than Yong. This grates on my Korean sensibilities... Oh well.

\- Cranio is Italian for skull. He's the guy with the black skullcap and white gloves in the left corner.

\- Musashi and Fuuma are both separate Japanese pirates famous in history (for being awful, but whatever, haha). He's the guy with the pink topknot whose face is blocked by Benn Beckman's elbow.

\- Gora is the shortened form of gorira, aka gratuitous English for gorilla. Guess who that is? That's right, it's the dude who looks like a particularly ferocious gorilla. My naming skills are top-notch, yo.

\- Not to be confused with "kaigun" (literally "sea army") which is referring to the navy as an organization, the Japanese word for individual marines is "海兵" ("kaihei"). "海" (pronounced "kai" here, though is usually pronounced "umi") means sea, while "兵" ("hei") means soldier. Together, it literally means "sea soldier".

\- Before you ask "isn't the toilet seat too big?", they're using Japanese style toilets, which I chose for that very reason. It's not likely that Red Hair Pirates have spare child toilet seats lying around, and I didn't want to complicate going to the bathroom even more.

**All who reviewed, and alerted, and favorited, thank you very, very much. I'm sorry the wait has been so long.**


	4. Overture - Dawn II

**Age 4**

* * *

**Kaienreki 1506**

**January**

* * *

Shanks watched with pensive eyes as Kane floated around the communal bathtub on a borrowed inner tube, her dangling extremities dragging arcs through the hot water. Her hair was startlingly bright without all the grime that had been coating it.

_So._

Benn had been right.

The girl really had eaten a devil fruit.

Shanks couldn't find it in himself to be surprised; his first mate's guesses always had the tendency to be even more correct than other men's known "truths". The World Government had really dropped the ball by losing a man like him - but, of course, that was none of Shanks's business.

What was his business, however, was determining whether the child's ability would be dangerous to his men, or herself. The powers that accompanied these mystical fruits were volatile concepts, and anyone who was not able to control the capabilities endowed by the 'Incarnation of the Sea Devil' was a danger to themselves and everyone around them. He knew the girl wouldn't purposely try to hurt anyone, but all it took was a single tantrum and, depending on the fruit eaten, she could level the entire ship into its individual planks, his men left to drift on the ocean currents or be sucked into the murky depths of the sea floor. He didn't doubt that he could subdue her if it came down to it - though she had proven be rather resilient thus far, and a temperamental outburst was looking less and less likely - but the troubling possibility was still there and, really, he'd prefer that it _didn't _come down to it.

There was a flicker in the corner of his eye, and Shanks calmly drifted over to the floating little girl. He needed wait only a few moments for her to follow through with her intentions and tumble off the black wheel, straight into his outstretched arms.

If nothing else, Kane's continued failure to understand that she couldn't swim convinced him of how recently the devil fruit had been eaten. She kept diving into the water, arms treading through the water in a breaststroke. He didn't doubt that she had been a very good swimmer before, but now, she only fell limp, whimpered at the weakness in her limbs, and sank.

The redhead hadn't seen someone this miserable about a devil fruit's side effects since Buggy. It was a rather pitiful sight, actually. Having been a strong swimmer his entire life, Shanks couldn't imagine unwittingly, unknowingly, losing the ability to move freely through water as she had, and it was obvious that Kane still wasn't able to comprehend the loss.

Shanks sat the girl on top of the swimming ring and was met with a plaintive green stare.

"_Why_?"

"Sorry, songbird," he told Kane. He laid his hand on top of her head and watched as his palm hid her eyes from view. "I don't really know either."

* * *

Kane peered over the Red Race's bulwark, hands grabbing at the wood and pulling her onto her toes. She caught a flash of orange scales lashing out from under the ship's shadow and leaned forward to get a better look, but was pulled up by a hand at her scruff.

"Woah there kiddie! That's not such a good idea, 'specially in these waters!"

She tried to pout at the man from where she dangled, only to be endeared by a big grin, green stripes and a grand, rotund belly.

"Mister! Let's play!" she cheered, giving the large man a toothy smile.

He laughed at her gaiety. "Sorry girlie, but I gotta help get this beaut ready for the Grand Line. If you're bored, why don't you sing a song?"

She contemplated this for a moment before nodding emphatically in agreement. "Uhn!"

He lowered her onto her feet and trundled aftward with a last grin. Kane happily wandered in the opposite direction, music beginning to bubble through her lips.

"_Here's a little song I wrote,_

_You might want to sing it note for note..._"

* * *

Towards the back of the ship, directly above the sternpost, the first mate and captain of the Akagami Pirates discussed in muted tones.

"So the lass is an ability user," Benn Beckman said.

"Yeah. But she still doesn't understand that she can't swim, so it can't have happened so long ago - likely on Hyōhen. She probably wouldn't have survived the cyclone if she'd been a hammer at the time."

If that was true, she must have come across the devil fruit within the first week after washing up on the beach, likely within the first three days. These new clues clarified things marginally, not by narrowing down the list of what the devil fruit could be, but by significantly lengthening the list of what it couldn't. However, that still left him with a very, very short list, since he couldn't factor in anything he didn't have enough concrete information to anticipate.

The sun played warm hues across the eastern sky as it sank low on the horizon; Benn gazed after the fading fresco as he mentally categorized the list of all fruits native to Hyōhen Island and juxtaposed it with a memorized list of all known abilities 'gifted by the sea devil' and their corresponding host fruits. He could go retrieve the book from his cabin to be doubly certain, but that was unnecessary, as he knew himself well enough to know his mind would not cast off potentially vital information.

The ones he knew to be currently in use were automatically disregarded, as were the ones whose vegetative hosts were not indigenous to the island, and those that he was certain could not affect the eagles in the way she had.

That left him with exactly one known possibility (the girl was a Noivern that had eaten the _Hito Hito no Mi_, which he knew to currently be in circulation though its location was unknown; this was highly doubtful, however, as the fruit's effects probably would have worn off in the water), two likelier theories (the first being the hypothetical fruit that would allow for control over avian creatures; as for the second... he knew of a _Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Falcon_ user in the country of Alabasta - the existence of a _Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Noivern Eagle_ could not be so unreasonable), and an abstract infinity of the unknown.

Benn's far off gaze suddenly focused on the grinning face of Cranio amidships, chuckling at what seemed like nothing at all. That in itself was not strange.

What was strange was the way there seemed to be a divide in mood past the wheel.

* * *

"_'Cause when you worry, your face will frown,_" Kane sang, doing a cheerful little hop onto her tiptoes. Her muscles strained as she wiggled her torso on top of the bow-rail, legs flailing, but she paid it no mind. After a bit of a struggle she finally managed to stabilize her weight over the wood, arms dangling over the ocean without risk of pulling her beyond the threshold. "_And that will bring everybody down..."_

Her smile stretched open at the sight of a gargantuan head undulating under the surface currents, a milky gossamer of sunlight lacing its orange scales.

"_Don't worry... deixa pra lá... be happy..._"

"Entering the Grand Line in five!"

"_La, la, la, la..._"

"Four!"

"_Olha a gentileza__..._"

"Three!"

"_Olha a gentileza__..."_

"Two!"

"_Simbóra..._"

"One!"

"_Don't worry, be happy!_"

A monster slowly slithered up from under the Red Race, its yellow pupils wider than she was tall. Entire rivers glided between the ridges of its skin as it twisted around to look at her and met her awed blue eyes with its own. The serpentine face drew closer to her until single, luminescent eye filled up her entire line of sight.

* * *

Shanks kept his eyes focused on the looming sea king as he spanned half the ship's length in a moment's breath. Distracted by the sudden appearance of the girl, he'd momentarily forgotten that sea kings tended to attempt a final act of rebellion when they felt the hold of his will fading away as their orders ended. And of course, luck had it that said girl was its most accessible victim. She was the most defenseless on the entire ship and would make for an easy meal, if nothing else.

Strange, then, that the overgrown fish wasn't attacking.

He wondered at this. Was it the conqueror's will? In one so young?

No, that wasn't it at all. The creature didn't seem cowed or tamed as Haoshoku would do; it was just as feral, just as vicious as its natural disposition made it. But it appeared calm and wholly content, which was a marked difference from any wild sea king he had seen.

_Is this how she'd made those birds her allies? And what is 'this', anyway?_

He did not know, but the great predator was much too close to the life he'd saved for him to breathe easy. As Shanks finally drew up behind the girl, he glared at the sea king and quietly rumbled, "_Go_."

* * *

Ignoring the shouts of alarm coming from the ship, Kane tilted her head back and waved enthusiastically at the creature. "Hello, Mister Daidai*!"

The monster stared at her for another moment before refocusing on something behind her. After another heavy pause, it retreated and shifted away from the ship, slipping back into the ocean without further event.

"Ah," she said, disappointed. Her shoulders drooped. And she'd thought she finally found a playmate.

"I guess Mister Daidai had a prior arrangement," someone chuckled from behind her. Kane peered over her shoulder to see Aka-san striding calmly over to her.

She pouted at him because, really, what a flake. He had promised to play with her...

And _he hadn't_.

Kane rather liked the mister, but he'd better pay up on that play date, and pay up soon, or else she'd - or else she'd - or else she'd do _something_, once she thought of it!

She could fend off boredom by herself of course; if nothing else, the island had forced her to become skilled at playing on her lonesome. But she was so lonely, and these men kept holding her still when all she wanted to do was run and laugh and reacquaint herself with people who would talk to her again, who would distract her from the freshly torn wound of

_daddydaddyDADDYshewantedsheneededdaddywhywhywhywhywhy_**DADDY**

Kane smiled at Aka-san. "Play now?"

He curled his left arm around her waist and lifted her easily, cradling her to his chest.

"Play now," he agreed.

* * *

"I need to ask a favor, captain."

"What is it?"

"Please give me permission to your books." At the redhead's startled look, Benn added, "It will take no longer than an hour. I had a... thought... that I hoped to validate."

Shanks studied his crew mate's face. He had allowed only one other person to look into his personal library, just once, in an attempt to not-quite coerce the man into joining the not-yet pirate crew; by no twist of fate, it was the very same man who stood before him now. Even as strangers he had known that he didn't want anyone else to be his first mate, and the stubborn insistence had paid off, though Shanks knew Benn had joined him for more than just his books.

He'd never asked to look at them again in the four years following which wasn't surprising really, the man's memory being the frightening thing it was. If he was asking to look at them now there must be a good reason for it.

"I'll give you two. Go."

* * *

Kane muffled her snickers under her palms as she tiptoed behind a stack of crates. A nearby Akagami pirate stared at her with a raised brow and quirked lips but she put a finger to her mouth, to his amusement.

"Shhhh!"

"Where-oh-where could my little birdie be?"

Hearing the now very familiar voice, Kane dove behind the boxes and peeked through the cracks. She watched eagerly as Shanks ambled towards the man she had shushed earlier.

"Say Toda, have you seen a little girl around these parts, around wee tall?"

Toda gave an exaggerated shrug. "Sorry captain, can't say I have. Maybe you should check over there?"

He pointed to a direction completely opposite from where she was, and Kane couldn't stop a squeaky giggle in time. The two men shared a grin, but luckily, neither seemed to have noticed her faux pas. Shanks strolled off to where the man had pointed and Toda returned to his mopping with a cheerfully whistled tune.

When she was certain that Shanks was gone, Kane wiggled her way out of the enclosed space -

"Gotcha!"

The little girl shrieked with laughter as deft fingers found all of her vulnerable spots.

"Nooo! Not tickle attack!"

"Yes tickle attack!"

Toda chuckled at the sight that had become common in the last week. Who knew the captain would be so good with kids?

* * *

"I have to?"

"Yes captain, you have to. You need to set a good example, or Kane-chan won't eat all of her vegetables."

"But we don't eat all of our vegetables either, and we're perfectly fine. Just look at Roo - all he does is eat meat."

"You can't expect a four year old girl to maintain the same diet as grown men. Captain, please."

"Yeah, yeah," Shanks grumbled. "Damn, but I hate broccoli."

* * *

Shanks held up a finger. "What's this?"

"Ichi!"

Two fingers.

"Ni!"

Three fingers.

"San!"

Four fingers.

"Shi!"

"Alright then... What's this?" He held up nine fingers.

"Shi! Go!"

"No, I mean all together."

Her brow scrunched together for a moment before she proudly declared, "Kyuu!"

"Yup!" He ruffled her hair enthusiastically. "Alright, here's a curveball: what's seven plus six?"

Kane looked at her pudgy fingers with squinty eyes, raising seven fingers, and then another three, and then dropping all the fingers of one hand to raise another three. "Juu...san?"

"That's right! Okay, last one - thirteen plus eight."

She stared blankly at him.

"Dahaha, maybe that was a bit too hard. See, you do it like this..."

* * *

Sharp eyes spotted a ship approaching fast from the southeast, off starboard. "Kane, go to the room and lock the door. No matter what you hear, don't come out until I say."

Hearing the urgent undertone in his voice, Kane picked up her ball and ran to the large room she shared with Shanks, who only allowed himself to relax once he felt the child entering his cabin.

"Captain!"

"Yeah. I saw it. What colour were their flags?"

"Black, sir. I don't recognize their jolly roger. They're coming straight for us; at this rate, they're gonna ram straight into the Race. Its clear they want a fight."

Shanks took a brief moment to think. On the one hand, his men had been itching for a bit of bloodshed - it had been too quiet recently, what with the child on board. And running away from an unknown group of rookies would do unspeakable things to the name of the Akagami Pirates. On the other, it might endanger the girl if any of the enemy got into the core of the ship.

Then all he had to do was keep them from getting on board, he decided.

"Who's at the helm?"

"Gaillard."

"Good, he's best at evasive maneuvering. Tell him to let them scrape close enough for us to make our way onto the enemy ship, and back up before any of them can sneak on ours." He considered the hand sized ship approaching from the horizon. From the size of it, and the distance, he'd say there were around a thousand men manning the thing. His own crew numbered somewhere around two hundred. Truthfully, they'd probably need less than a fifth of that number to take care these bold rookies, but...

"Round up the men. Anyone who doesn't have duties can fight. I don't know that we'll get many more chances for a while, so best make this one count, aye?"

The pirate eagerly snapped to attention, a hand already stroking the sword hilt at his side. "Yes sir, captain!"

* * *

Kane rolled around on the large bed she shared with Shanks, bored out of her mind. Why had he told her to go to their room? What was going on out there?

She eyed the locked door and considered taking a peek, but flinched as she remembered the last time she had disobeyed orders to hide. She had learned her lesson.

_Never again._

(_But I only had one father to lose in the first place, so that can't ever happen again anyway, can it?_ something thought bitterly.)

Kane squirmed at the uncomfortable feeling in her chest and blinked away tears, because daddy had told her to smile and she was an obedient girl now, she would always, always listen to what she was told, and even though she knew her daddy would never come back, at least her new friends wouldn't be killed because she was a bad girl.

So she calmed herself. Grabbed the stack of papers Benn-san had given her to practice her _kana_ and tried to concentrate. This worked rather well until she reached the twentieth hiragana character.

_Boom._

That was when the all too-familiar explosions began.

"_Toh_. 'Toe with a thorn'." She tremulously traced a short diagonal line whose tip pointed left and then a simple curve that opened to the opposite direction. "To."

_Boom. Boom._

"To, to, to." She drew the character three more times. Each attempt was shakier than the last.

_Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom._

Unable to stand it, Kane jumped to her feet and dragged her chair under the porthole. She wanted to make sure that those noises weren't what she thought they were, because there was no way she could focus on anything but the quivering of her hands at this point. She peered out of the little window to see -

Something straight out of her memories turned nightmares.

Kane stared horrified at the spinning black monsters that had destroyed her father's boat and shattered his legs into scraps. One fell just short of her room, plummeting into the ocean with a great splash that reached her eyes but not her ears. Still, she could hear the sounds well enough though recall, knew exactly what sound those beasts made when diving into the sea full force, what sound they made when crashing through layers and layers of wood, what sound they made when impacting human bone directly, what sound her father made when he grit his teeth and _screamed_ through the pain.

A second later she found herself staring up from the rug on the floor and wondered how she'd gotten there.

_Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom._

Somehow, Kane managed to drag herself into the bed and curled into a tight, tight ball with the duvet pulled up over her head to muffle out the world around her.

_Go away go away go away gogogogoawayawayawaynomorenomorepleasenomore_

Someone was making a terrible keening noise.

* * *

Shanks wiped his sword on the jacket of a nearby body (still breathing - good for him, the poor guy deserved a bit of a break after the decimation of his crew) and resheathed it with a flick of his wrist.

"Roo, send out the signal."

"On it, captain."

Two red flares shot up into the clear blue sky. Two for victory. Four for death, but there was no death today.

Not for the Akagami Pirates, anyway.

Originally he hadn't planned on joining his crew in this battle even though it was kind of his job. But then Benn had said he would stay behind, so Shanks had allowed himself to shed his worry for a half-hour and just enjoy the rush of battle. These guys hadn't been half-bad actually, they might have been able to get to the end of Paradise if they really pushed themselves; their cockiness hadn't been entirely undeserved. It was just that the Akagami Pirates were so much _better_ and the rookies had overreached.

The Red Race swam smoothly up beside the larger frigate and Shanks was glad to see that she hadn't sustained any damage from the canon fire. After realizing that they had little hope against the attackers on board their own ship, the rookies had gotten incredibly trigger happy, trying desperately to land even just one hit on the opposing boat. It had gotten pretty annoying, actually, to the point that there were no intact canons on this entire battleship because Shanks had sliced them all up. No need to risk getting a hole in the Race or scaring the child on board, a child he was quickly growing fond of.

The planks were lowered, and Shanks made his way across with men following at his heels. They dispersed the moment they reached familiar deck, off to clean blood or tend to wounds or do their chores (and don't think he didn't notice that the guy on toilet duty had fought too; not that Shanks could blame him for shirking _that_ particular job) while Shanks went to his cabin to check that Kane hadn't miraculously gotten hurt or gone missing.

The key in its pocket was extracted with ease, and the redhead pushed open the door without a creak. The chair wasn't where it was supposed to be - clearly she'd gotten curious - and there was a lump on the bed that looked suspiciously like little girl. Just to be sure, Shanks silently lifted a corner and found Kane curled into a ball facing the opposite direction, her breaths soft and slow in a way that could only be brought on by sleep. It took a certain kind of person to sleep through the ruckus of battle, he thought, amused.

Shanks smiled fondly and left her to it.

* * *

He did not see the salty track of tears drying on Kane's cheeks.

* * *

**Kaienreki 1506**

**February**

* * *

"Is the lighthouse keeper Crocus in?" Shanks called, stepping onto the Eastern Cape. Kane remained at his side but her eyes were exploring enough for her, flitting between Laboon, the mountain, and the lighthouse in awe.

"That depends on who's asking," said an ominous voice.

Shanks didn't answer him, not seeing the point, but Cranio had no such foreknowledge. "We're - "

"Yeah he's in."

His navigator's cheery grin spasmed.

"If you're here to extort money, you'll need to prepare a coffin," the same voice announced, just as a harpoon landed inches from Shanks's foot. His crew began to reach for their weapons, but the redhead steadied them with a raised hand.

"Oh yeah?" asked Shanks with an easy grin. "For who, old man?"

The former Roger Pirates' doctor shuffled out of his home and spotted the large group crowding the base of the mountain.

"For me."

Someone behind Shanks made a strangled noise.

"Dahahaha! You haven't changed at all, Crocus!"

The older man walked closer. "Who are you?"

"Don't you know? He's - "

"Why, if it isn't Shanks! All grown up and with your own crew, I almost didn't recognize you!"

"LET ME AT HIM!"

"DIE, YOU SHITTY OLD MAN!"

Shanks threw back his head and laughed.

* * *

"I see. So you want me to take care of this lass."

Shanks nodded and refilled both of their saucers with sake. "Kane appears to have a devil fruit power that lets her calm dangerous beasts, which you might find helpful with that fellow over there. Please consider it. She's a good child; lively, but does whatever she's told."

"The Grand Line is a big place," Crocus agreed. "I don't doubt that the child may be able to do what I cannot. And the lighthouse could use a bit of a bright touch..." There was a considering pause, and Shanks almost wondered if Crocus would say yes. "But I can't. One child is more than enough to keep my hands full. I believe you've seen the scarring on Laboon's head? His reaction to the news about the Rumbar Pirates was worse than I expected. Even without considering the scores of rookies making their way down this mountain, the Capes are no place for a little girl."

Shanks nodded. "I understand. I thought as much."

"This is rather unexpected, though," Crocus continued, knocking back his ochoko* and savoring the warm burn. "I've never seen you purposefully involve yourself this much in the lives of anyone you've saved."

"Maybe I've changed," Shanks suggested wryly.

"You're in the papers far too often to pull that one, kid. Those reporters generally can't find their ass with both hands, but I can read between the lines enough to know you haven't changed very much at all. So why is this child different?"

"You're right, I guess. I usually don't linger, but this girl... she has no one else. There is no one else to worry about what happens to her, to care whether she lives or dies, to even know of her existence, and that..." The redhead took a sip of sake before continuing. "_That_ is the worst thing in the world."

Realisation dawned in Crocus's eyes. "You see yourself in her."

"Four is too young to face the world alone."

"As is seven. I understand, Shanks. You don't want her to experience what you did."

"Rayleigh told you, huh?" Shanks twisted his lips in a strange semblance of a smile. "We're not discussing my past. I'm not nearly enough of a geezer to reminisce about the good old days."

"Gahahaha! I'm not that old, you damned brat! I've only just started getting gray hairs!"

Shanks chuckled along and didn't mention that there seemed to be nearly as much white as black framing the doctor's face.

* * *

Two days of enthusiastic partying later, the Akagami Pirates plus one departed from Reverse Mountain in high spirits and the occasional hangover.

"Bye-bye Cro-san! 'Boon-chan!" Kane called, waving wildly at her new friends. The island whale bellowed in farewell, while Crocus just smiled and waved.

Shanks, who stood a little ways away, shifted at the approach of his first mate. He nursed his head in one hand and a warm mug of coffee in the other but the redhead managed to lift the first long enough to meet eyes. "What's wrong?"

"I believe I know which devil fruit Kane has eaten."

"Tell me."

He told him.

The mug in Shanks's hand cracked.

* * *

"Kane-chan," Shanks called. The smaller redhead turned at his voice. He smiled at her and held out an hand. "C'mere for a second."

She tap-tap-tapped across the deck and flew into his outstretched arms with an eager beam. He laughed and twirled her once, before setting her back onto her feet.

"Kane, I need you to do something for me."

"Okay!"

A corner of his mouth twitched upward. He hadn't even told her what he wanted.

"Can you sing me a song?"

She tilted her head and blinked at him as if to say, 'Which?'

Something simple and completely harmless. "A lullaby. Sing me a lullaby, won't you? And," he added as she opened her mouth, "make sure you focus on making everyone fall asleep."

She gave him a strange look at that, but complied readily.

"_Little boy blue come blow your horn..._"

Shanks watched as the girl's eyes bled shadows, the clear turquoise of her irises darkening to the inky blues of the deep sea.

"_The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn..._"

A gradual lethargy began to blanket his thoughts, weighing down his limbs like lead. Shanks shrugged it off with barely a thought and it dissipated as if never there.

_"But where is the boy who looks after the sheep?..."_

When Shanks glanced around, he saw that many of the men nearby on deck were sporting drowsy, drooping eyelids, though the rest remained unaffected.

_"He's under a haystack fast asleep..."_

When the first crewmate collapsed on the deck, snores rumbling out before his eyes even slipped closed, Shanks said, "That's enough." Kane immediately stopped and stared up at him with wide eyes that paled back to their original hue. Catching himself, he softened the hard edge of his words with a smile and a hair ruffle. "Thank you, songbird. You can go back to your book now."

She shuffled back to her children's book, and Shanks strode back to his cabin, steps measured and even.

* * *

Shanks sprawled himself haphazardly onto his chair and gave a long sigh.

"I think you're right," he told the figure slouching in the corner of the room. "How long have you suspected?"

"Since exiting the calm belt."

"The day after she woke up? That was almost four weeks ago. Why didn't you say anything?"

"Even after I revisited the journal - " so _that_ was why Benn had wanted license to his library: there was only one journal he could be referencing in this particular situation " - I could not be sure until last night. The lass sings often, but she only concentrates well enough for her powers to activate on rare occasion. I am certain of just two incidents, though I suspect six others."

And Shanks remembered nine separate instances in the past few weeks where Kane had gulped down sweet foods like her life depended on it - now that he knew why, he realised that was because it probably did. Even at this very moment, she was bound to be running to Yong to beg for something packed with sugar to the brim, spurred by a sudden craving that she wouldn't understand. Musashi's initial diagnosis of low levels of blood sugar back when they first found her - despite having lived on a diet of sweet fruits for months on end - made a whole lot more sense now.

From the history he knew of this specific fruit, Kane would either become an inexorable tyrant, as the author of the aforementioned journal had done, or be used and used and used until she killed herself just to escape the never ending misery. To avoid the second fate she'd have to either be protected so thoroughly that no one could get near her - _but there's always someone more powerful than you your men will be massacred your arrogance will kill them_ \- or to hide any and all traces of her ability from others - _she'll slip up in the end someone's going to figure out eventually you can't hide her forever_ \- but the first depended entirely on her - _or her upbringing you just don't want to be blamed for failure you coward_ \- because power corrupts and he could think of six men off the top of his head who would quite literally kill to own this power. Though, he didn't imagine that any of them would sing quite as well as his little songbird, Shanks thought, his humor beginning to border on hysterics as he pictured Teach bellowing opera at a crowd of attacking marines.

The red-haired pirate captain was of the belief that man made his own fate, but he couldn't help but think that the gods were really messing with him here; what were the chances that the abandoned little girl would happen to eat the Uta Uta no Mi just in time to protect her from predators and would then happen to be saved right from the brink of death by the only person in the world who owned the informal manual to a power that no one had seen hide nor hair of for the past two hundred years and that she just so happened to display enough similarities to his childhood for him to be unable to thoughtlessly abandon her on some populated island (because make no mistake, he wouldn't do this for just any kid; he was a pirate, not a nun) and Benn was staring at him with worried eyes, but damn it, at this point the only thing he could do was guffaw at how ridiculous life was.

Saezuri Kane must be under the protection of a truly benevolent deity, Shanks thought.

* * *

Later that day, the captain watched, mouth grinning but eyes quietly contemplative, as Kane sang another lullaby to a group on the other side of the deck - those who wanted to know what had happened after hearing about the strange occurrence that morning. Several men fell asleep and the others laughed. Shanks took a gulp of his beer to hide the serious downturn of his mouth, and thought of the book in his cabin, bound in leather and scavenged from the skeletons of an old, dead temple. At the age of fifteen he'd not seen the importance of it, but when he was sixteen all things that had once been his captain's had found new value, and several years after that Benn had made him realize the strategic importance of all information, that knowing for knowledge was sometimes not enough.

(Though he acknowledged that, he still did not know what to do with this heavy awareness of the True History. Did he sit back and pretend ignorance, as so many of his past crewmates did? Captain Roger would have done something, surely, if he hadn't been forced to meet his fate so early; but large and flashy was not something he was good at, not like the Pirate King was. Then, perhaps...)

And sometimes knowledge was an unfortunate thing, because he could not enjoy these parlour tricks as his men did, not while knowing how great, how _terrible_ Kane's powers could be. Anyone hoping to overthrow a kingdom would only need her to sing, and it would be theirs. His original plans had been to whisk her away to a safe little East Blue village, but now that he knew...

He could not leave her alone in this state, Shanks finally decided. She was too trusting, and the way she did everything she was told without complaint was worrying. Children that age were supposed to throw tantrums, and yell about what they did or did not want to do, and whine about their vegetables, and protest having playtime interrupted by studying. They were not supposed to be complaisant to the point of desperation. There was no way she wouldn't be taken advantage of; worst of all if anyone found out that, with enough incentive, her mere voice could commit a massacre -

The very thought made him cringe.

While that was a bit of an extreme example, killing people was not much worse than turning them into mindless zombies. He was relatively sure he knew Kane well enough to predict that she would never do something like that purposely, but it would only be too easy to manipulate a child like her.

And if anyone claimed that he was just using this as an excuse to justify keeping the kid around a little longer...

Well, at least it was a good excuse.

* * *

**AN**

In which Shanks hates broccoli, is a surprisingly good math teacher, and has a small panic attack. Kane angsts about her deceased father who appears to have not died from a storm as Shanks believes. Plus Shanks decides to keep the child despite his better judgment. Or maybe because of it? (And lots of hinted background for Shanks and Benn Beckman.)

I have read quite a few female OC in One Piece fanfictions, some very impressive, others not quite. A common underlying theme I've found for many (but definitely not all) of the OCs is bird imagery and skill in singing and/or cooking. Others are daughters of Yonko or Shichibukai or have other familial relations to canon characters. The girls often have red hair and huge devil fruit powers. What I'm doing here is gathering those clichés and making them huge plot points. Because why the fuck not. And I'm going to make this story lots of action and adventure and BOOMBAMWOOSH rather than just romance wish-fulfillment, for more intense levels of why the fuck not. :D

One cliché I will not be following is the OC-joins-the-Strawhat-Heart-Kidd-Whitebeard-Pirates theme. I have plans extending all the way to chapter 759 (the current one), and that isn't part of any of them. I apologize if anyone is disappointed. I just don't see the logic behind the thought that the only way you can be free on the ocean is by being a pirate.

Anyway, I figured there had to be a reason Shanks was so adamant about not having a kid on board. He was, at the oldest, fourteen when he was Roger's crew and probably even younger because it doesn't seem like he'd only been there for a year. So why was he against Luffy's being on board for even one trip? Hmmm...

**Notes**

\- *Daidai means orange. So the orange sea king's name is Mister Orange. (Weeee my creativity knows no bounds~)

\- *Ochoko are the small Japanese sake cups. Not the wide brimmed one that Whitebeard used with Shanks (those are called sakazuki - yes, like the admiral).

\- Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, nana, hachi, kyuu, juu. One to ten, you know the drill.

\- 'Kana' is pretty much the Japanese alphabet and has two forms: hiragana and katakana. The character Kane was writing is "と", romanized as "to", pronounced "toh"/"toe". (It really does look like a toe with a thorn sticking out, right? Learning mnemonics ftw.) Her learning to read/write was inspired by the fact that apparently Luffy and Zoro _don't know how_, or at least choose not to. Stalwart bookworm that I am, I boggled at that. _Choosing_ not to read? Preposterous. x-x

\- At this point in time, Laboon is actually around 40 years old. O_O Not such a child, except maybe at heart.

\- For those who don't read FnS and missed that note, Kane is pronounced "kah-neh" (in true Japanese style). Not "cane".

\- If anyone's noticed the chapter titles... I'm taking the William Tell Overture and massacring it for the sake of the fanfiction. Don't judge. (omgplsreallydunjudgeiknowi'mstoopid)

**Pretty please review! If you don't know what to talk about:**

\- Parallels between Luffy recruiting Zoro, and the hints about how Shanks recruited Benn Beckman. Find them. ;)

\- Theories on Benn Beckman's background with the world government.

\- Theories on Shanks's past.

_**What I currently need help with:**_

\- Can somebody tell me how I'm doing with the side character names? I'm just making them up, but I don't know if they match the Akagami Pirates theme or what. Maybe I suck. Maybe they're fine. I have no idea. If anyone can think up a list of suitable OP background character names (something suitable but ridiculous like what Oda would think up), that would be absolutely lovely!


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